Alaska Marine Highway

The multi-hundred-million-dollar Tustumena Ferry Replacement Project has cleared the audit phase, and a Louisiana-based contractor is set to begin design and construction.

That's according to an announcement the Alaska Marine Highway System posted on social media earlier this month.

The replacement for the Tusti has been in the works since at least 2021, but received no bids when it first went out to bid in 2022.

It went back out to bid a second time earlier this year and received one bid from Thomas C.

Marine Constructors of around $350 million.

Before being officially awarded the contract, the company had to go through a Buy America audit, which makes sure the company is using more than 70% American-made parts to build the ship and does all the construction in the United States.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Marine Highway System, Gabe Strong, says they officially passed that audit at the end of September.

Each time there's another milestone that we cross, it's like, "Oh, wow, we're getting closer to this, um, this new ship."

Right.

Well, and there's a huge also correlation, you know, we have the Alaska Marine Highway System.

Absolutely.

I know that you have a business that works with that on a weekly-

Three of the four candidates for governor appealed to Southeast Alaskans for support at a forum in Ketchikan on Tuesday.

The Alaska Marine Highway System and its role connecting Southeast communities took much of the spotlight during the roughly 90-minute forum at the annual meeting of the Economic Development Group Southeast Conference.

All three candidates underscored the vital role the ferry system plays in connecting communities across coastal Alaska.

Republicans Treg Taylor and Dave Bronson each endorsed a plan that calls for six new vessels and a more than 25 percent boost in port calls in the coming decades.

Fly seafood workers to Colvay and transport them by ferry to Dutch Harbor.

UNICEF wrote a letter to the Alaska Marine Highway System in July.

It asked if the state ferry Kennecott could be staged in Cold Bay for 7 to 10 days during the peak transportation period for the Pollock fishery.

Enloe says the goal is to explore ways to help reduce the transportation bottleneck and improve access to Dutch Harbor and Unalaska.

And with ferries, it's just once a week heading north and once a week heading south.

And that's known as the Alaska Marine Highway.

And I know in other island communities, coastal communities in other parts of Alaska, that ferry runs even less.

The Alaska Marine Highway, so the ferry would go, you know, southern tip, northern tip and...

Yeah.

So in southeast Alaska, it would leave from Bellingham, Washington and go all the way to Juneau.

All four candidates supported getting more data on what's happening to Chinook or King Salmon populations in Alaska, but they did not agree on the cause of Chinook declines around the state.

The four gubernatorial hopefuls also said they all support the Alaska Marine Highway System, will fund the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, and plan to hire a fisheries advisor if they are elected as governor.

You can watch or listen to the entire fisheries debate by going online to kmxt.org.

The general election is November 3rd, and early voting begins on October 19th.